The Official Blog of the Urban History Association
A. K. Sandoval-Strausz Associate Professor of History Penn State University @SandovalStrausz Describe your current research. What about it drew your interest? I’ve been looking closely at the politics and economy of Latina/o repopulation in Pennsylvania’s smaller industrial cities. Places like Bethlehem, Allentown, Reading, Lancaster, York, and Hazleton are located in highly politically bellwether counties: Lehigh, […]
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Editor’s note: March kicks off The Metropole’s coverage of its Metropolis of the Month: Miami. We begin with our usual overview/bibliography to be followed each week with at least one article on the city for the month. In Michael Mann’s 2006 film, Miami Vice, detectives Sonny Crocket and Ricardo Tubbs jump from pastel-hued 1980s television […]
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By Richard Rodger The British Welfare State was “invented” in 1942 by the social reformer and Liberal politician William Beveridge. After a landslide post-war election win in 1945, however, it was the Labour Party that launched a “Welfare State” – a comprehensive legislative programme that included universal health, employment, and social benefits while also nationalizing […]
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To conclude our Month of Academic Odes, we solicited these beautiful shout-outs from urban historians and urbanists. They speak to the collegiality of our field and the role of relationships in the construction of knowledge. Thankfully, only one is written in rhyme. So without further ado… Amanda Seligman’s Ode to Ann Durkin Keating, Jim Grossman, […]
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Simpson, Andrew T. The Medical Metropolis: Health Care and Economic Transformation in Pittsburgh and Houston. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2019. Reviewed by Kenneth Alyass The COVID-19 pandemic has made the geographies of health care systems visible in new ways, as cameras have focused on the harrowing scenes of filled-to-capacity ICUs, health care workers draped […]
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By Ben Bansal Tokyo is Asia’s first megacity: its urban agglomeration topped the symbolic ten million inhabitants marker sometime after World War II. While it had been one of the world’s largest cities for centuries, arguably its most relevant growth spurt took place between 1950 and 1970. It was during this period that the already […]
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Matt Vitz Associate Professor of Latin American History UC San Diego Describe your current research. What about it drew your interest? I am currently working on several projects. First, I am devising a second book project that will examine the historical relationship between indigenous knowledges and elite and scientific imaginaries about indigenous peoples from the […]
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When Kenneth Kusmer died in November, urban historians lost a (humble) giant in the field. In this ode, Walter Greason remembers and honors his dissertation advisor. By Walter Greason When I was a doctoral student in the late 1990s, Temple University’s graduate seminars in history met in Center City, Philadelphia, at 1616 Walnut Street. One […]
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By Katie Uva In an essay first published in The New York Times in 2001, Colson Whitehead wrote, “You start building your private New York the first time you lay eyes on it.” I started building my private New York at the top of a hill, one of the several that gave my neighborhood, Forest […]
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Talen, Emily. Neighborhood. New York: Oxford University Press, 2019. Reviewed by David J. Goodwin In his beloved 1949 essay “Here is New York,” E.B. White described the intricate network of businesses, shops, and encounters contained within an average New York City neighborhood. Residents could satisfy their daily needs by walking just a few blocks from […]
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